Volvo: Flame Trap, high crankcase pressure, flame trap

Question


Ray,

thanks for the reply but I couldnt understand one thing. do we have to tear down the whole dash or only removing the dash cover will be enough to get the evaporator out? and I have one more question when climbing hills with the car I feel the car is performing a little poor, the engine compression is good, the tranny is also good (both have been tested) my car has 200,000 miles on it so I think the exhaust and the oxygen sensor might be the cause of the poor performance.. what do you think? or maybe the flame trap cause it has never been cleaned? people or the dealer in my country(Turkey) have no idea about what a flame trap is.. thanks..

Answer
Mete,
To start drain the coolant, recover the remaining freon from the system. Disconnect the A/C lines at the evap by the firewall. Then remove the heater hoses at the firewall.
Remove the wiper arms and cowl, the wiper assemble motor. There you will see the 4 bolts that hold  the dash to the firewall. Now continue with.
The top (crash pad), the instrument cluster, glove box, side panels, radio, A/C controls, under dash panel, knee bolsters all out.
At this point you will see the heater case, that is a personal opinion, some techs leave it in and dissemble it in the car others remove it to disassemble. Remove the evap and replace.
The engine maybe just wearing out, or the exhaust system could be plugged. If the O2 sensor was bad there should be a fault code to help diagnosis that. Flame trap will only cause too high crankcase pressure, and eventually blow out oil seals. I can not tell you if they use a flame trap in your country. In the states all non turbo cars have them.